


A Boy And A Girl

by phrenitis



Category: Farscape RPF, Stargate Atlantis RPF, Stargate SG-1 RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-03
Updated: 2011-01-03
Packaged: 2017-10-14 22:13:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/154030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phrenitis/pseuds/phrenitis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“The good times,” he says, understanding now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Boy And A Girl

_“I’ve been a lot of places all around the way  
I’ve see a lot of joy, and I’ve seen a lot of pain  
But I don’t want to write a love song for the world  
I just want to write a song about a boy and a girl”  
\-- Michael Franti, ‘Say Hey’_

==

He watches Claudia play with her drink, the glass turning and turning in her fingertips, and he knows she’s thinking thoughts he can’t follow – too dark, too complicated, probably both, and way beyond his ability to guess.

“Are the good times gone?” she asks him in all seriousness.

He follows her gaze to where it rests on the Atlantis cast the next table over – drinks flowing, laughter easy. It is a show still in its infancy, but reception has been favorable and it’s no wonder they find reason to celebrate.

“Our show’s almost a decade in already, Claud.”

She flashes him one of her looks, and this is one of the ones he _knows_. When he glances back at the Atlantis table he finally catches up. He’s familiar enough with the signs - Joe’s arm casually over Torri’s chair, the way she’s leaning toward him, their shoulders touching and eyes bright.

“The good times,” he says, understanding now.

She nods, nostalgically, but there’s a flicker of a smile.

==

Torri sits in the back of Joe’s car, Sedge sprawled out on one side, and Truman on the other. It’s a squeeze, but not entirely uncomfortable despite Truman hitting her knee on occasion to try and get it to kick involuntarily. “It worked at the doctor,” he says disappointedly.

Joe catches her eye in the rearview mirror, apology in his expression. “Coffee on me tomorrow.”

“Try for a week,” she says with a smirk.

He turns to Aidan in the front seat. “See what you’ve cost me?”

“It was my day to sit in the front,” Aiden says completely matter of fact.

At the park, they watch the boys run themselves to exhaustion chasing Sedge, or being chased by Sedge – it’s a lot of running in circles filled with laughter and barks. Newspaper in hand, they attempt the Sunday crossword in pen (she’s a believer of pencils, and _erasers_ , but he finds this blasphemous). She’s also fairly sure he’s timing them, but he continuously denies it.

“Opportunity,” she suggests for _comes knocking_ , and sits in the success of it for a moment knowing this is one of the only answers she’s likely to get correct - Joe is good, and disturbingly fast at crosswords.

When Truman and Aiden come to sit beside her on the bench, she realizes how close she’s been sitting to Joe – leaning against him, a little too obvious, his hand lightly on her thigh. Truman collapses dramatically against her. “I’m _so_ hungry.”

She pulls her bag up to her lap, digs through it with Truman’s help (he announces each item – _a script!_ , _a pencil!_ , _a wallet!_ ) until she finds the granola bars ( _food!_ ) and gives them to the boys. She shares one with Joe, throwing a bit to Sedge when she comes begging.

Aiden pulls them all off the bench for some football. It pretty much involves Aiden and Truman alternately scoring while running full tilt across the park, and Joe managing to tackle Torri whenever she happens to have the ball.

“This game is rigged,” she says from the grass as Joe kisses her forehead and helps her up.

Aiden looks at her with a huge grin. “This game is AWESOME.”

==

They’re eating lunch outside and enjoying the rare Vancouver sun when Joe and Torri walk past with a skateboard. Claudia gives him a kick.

“I’m not blind, you know,” he says somewhat indignantly.

Torri is frowning, hands on hips, as Joe sets the skateboard down in front of her. “This is going to happen,” he’s saying. “On you get.”

Ben’s surprised when Torri doesn’t put up more of a fuss, feet firmly on the board as Joe explains the basics, his hand on her back to steady her. It doesn’t take long before Torri’s on her own making mostly confident runs through the path between sound stages.

Ben looks at Claudia. “This reminds me of something.”

She smiles. “Surfing?”

“You were a natural.”

==

It is a few months into hiatus when Torri’s number starts flashing on his cell phone, the ringing loud.

She cuts him off before he's even said her name.

"I need a six letter word for _accommodate_."

He throws out the first thing that comes to his mind. "Adapt."

"That's only five letters."

"Have room for."

He can sense her smile in the pause. "You're really not trying very hard."

He knows she’s not a fan of crossword puzzles; her answers are usually barely veiled notes scribbled in the boxes like _bring Chinese_ or _your car_.

"Six letter word," she reminds him. “This is in pen.”

Her voice is soft and warm, and it reminds him that he still has the message saved in his voicemail where she called to tell him to come get his damn script from her trailer already and oh, that Sedge had successfully stood on a skateboard.

"Acclimatize. Adjust. Get used to."

“That’s the one,” she says, and he can hear faint scribbling in the background. “Okay, that was it.”

He laughs. “I feel used.”

==

Ben isn’t surprised when Claudia drags him, hand in his, to the table where Joe and Torri are sitting. He knew she would have to say _something_ eventually.

“Some advice from me to you,” she says, and directs it at Torri more than the rest of them.

He waits, gives Joe a bit of a shrug as if to say _I have no control over this_.

Claudia leans in. “Don’t let him keep your voicemails.” And then she winks.

Ben gapes – this woman is going to be the death of him. The direction is definitely not what he expects, but aside from Joe looking a bit shell-shocked, Torri is actually smiling. “We’ve recently had to have that conversation.”

“Is it so hard to ask for a little common sense?”

Torri laughs. “Men.”

“Boys,” Claudia amends, and with a little smirk pushes him out of his seat and back to the set.

 

 _-Fin_


End file.
